Best of 2013

You may have heard: filmgoers enjoyed an embarrassment of riches in 2013. If you’ve been waiting for everything to get to Netflix or you’d just like to compare notes, below are my “Best Of” picks for a remarkable year at the movies.

I ranked films first of all by sheer subjective impact: a picture’s emotional richness or intellectual provocation, staying power in my memory and imagination, my desire to revisit it. Then, to get out of my own head a little, I considered standout performances/direction/writing/technical work, innovation, and urgent themes:

Top Ten:

1. The Act of Killing: This vivid, provocative documentary gets uncomfortably close to a a cadre of death squad veterans celebrated for the mass murders their history of mass murder. Hands down, this is the best documentary I’ve ever seen. Joshua Oppenheimer and his collaborators do much more than coax confessions from these unabashed genocides: they screen test Hamlet’s idea “the play’s the thing” to “catch the conscience of the king,” with increasingly surreal results.

2. Blancanieves: The plucky orphan Carmen (Inma Cuesta) grows up to reclaim her father’s toreador heritage under the glaring sun of 1920s Andalusia … aided by a loyal troop of itinerant dwarves. Surprisingly affecting, Pablo Berger composes his Snow White of indelible black-and-white cinema set to a heartrending flamenco and orchestral score. The film knows enough to wink at its period stereotypes and fairy-tale conceits: Maribel Verdú for example delights as the toothily wicked Señora Encarna. Yet none of those momentary ironies kept Berger’s story from leaving me speechless and haunted. And I’ve been revisiting its imagery ever since.

3. Her: Spike Jonze’s witty fable of a lonely writer in love with his feminine-voiced, always-available Operating System arguably has much sharper things to say about gender and consumerism than artificial intelligence. Joachim Phoenix gives a nuanced performance, conveying alone, bodily, facially, the whole drama of a romantic relationship. Scarlett Johanssen compellingly voices an evolving, self-aware, disembodied person. Amy Adams winningly renders Phoenix’s one Real-World friend and confidant. Most apt and memorable of all: Jonze’s vision of rich, lonely consumers wearing brightly-colored, childlike costumes, shuffling through a mall-like city, talking through or to unseen devices. Kudos to Arcade Fire for the moody, atmospheric soundtrack.

4. 12 Years a Slave: Long overdue, Steve McQueen’s adaptation of this antebellum slave narrative took on deeper, sadder poingancy during a period when Americans hotly debated the legitimacy of the first black president, the privilege of white homeowners to shoot black passersby, whether minorities need Voting Rights protections, the virtues of Jim Crow, and the whiteness of Jesus and Santa Claus. No doubt that’s a bit too much racial paranoia to ask one film to address, but “12 Years a Slave” became an instant milestone as Hollywood’s most direct confrontation with the historical slave experience, as opposed to white Americans’ fantasies and arguments over this foundational injury. Chiwetel Ejiofor carries the story on a raft of brittle emotion, cautiously navigating the narrow channel between misery and horror, always longing for an escape. Paul Giamatti and Michael Fassbender startle and terrify as the faces of antebellum human trafficking and self-righteous atrocity. Alfre Woodard lords over a veranda as a black woman who escaped the fields for a master’s bed. Bennedict Cumberbatch presents another kind of conflicted, compromised figure. Above all, however, Adepero Aduye overpowers the viewer with her performance as the entrapped Eliza, who bleeds for just an inch of dignity:

5. The Broken Circle Breakdown: Asynchronous, overflowing with keening bluegrass, sexy, weepy, “The Broken Circle Breakdown” is a sweet, layered onion of passionately irreconcilable ambivalences written across a family. This was one of my favorite films from SIFF 2013 and is my pick for most underrated film of the year:

6. August: Osage County: Alonso Duralde complained in The Wrap of John Wells’ adaptation of Tracy Letts’ Plains gothic that “Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts … tear into each other, their co-stars, and the scenery with all the reticence of Godzilla and Megalon doing battle in the Tokyo suburbs.” Well, call me trashy, Mr. Duralde, but I enjoyed this scenery-chewer immensely. Wells’ cast members compellingly inhabit Lett’s richly pessimistic, wickedly funny script, while his camera expands the story’s claustrophobic setting from the family home into the bleak heat all around–no escape there, it turns out. Meryl Streep’s matriarch Violet slings reckless, hurting rage of an ailing parent who feels like she’s given too much and gotten nothing back. Julia Roberts’ Barbara is an adult child of addicts, an oldest, and the mother of a teen, so basically a lioness. Margo Martindale and Chris Cooper have amazing rhythm and timing as the parents of Bennedict Cumberbatch’s shockingly vulnerable Little Charles. Julianne Nicholson’s middle child Ivy is taken for granted one time too many. Ewan McGregor is stolidly clueless. Juliette Lewis’ Karen and her sketchy fiancé Steve (Dermott Mulroney) provide tacky, sad comic relief. The whole ensemble tumbles warily toward the future, wrestling with fateful secrets, betrayals, and grudges written in the genetic code of Southern Gothic. Scenery-chewing is de rigeur. “Don’t get all Carson McCullers on me!” – Tracy Letts.

7. Gravity: If you haven’t seen Alfonso Cuarón’s absorbing spectacle on a the largest possible screen, please just go do that. Sandra Bullock and George Clooney hold up old-school chemistry against the cold depths of the void. The space-suited actors, technology, and threats tumble across orbital panoramas and past the viewer in ways that never cease to fascinate. 3-D technology has never been put to better use.

8. American Hustle: I loved “Hustle”‘s manic energy, campy ’70s costumes and dialogue, coiling plot, and its feast of over-the-top performances. (I did spend an inordinate amount of time wondering how those diving ’70s necklines worked. Then I learned about fashion tape.) It’s sometimes hard to believe that Christian Bale’s slack-bellied, comb-over con-artist inhabits the same body as the skeletal ghost who prowled “The Machinist.” Amy Adams deftly transforms into faux Brit Sidney, whose whispered Old World connections magically separate fools from their money. Bradley Cooper’s FBI agent bullies his way through scene after scene, often seeming more wannabe gangster than fed. Jeremy Renner’s quixotic, big-haired Camden mayor makes you want to yell “don’t do it!” But it’s Jennifer Lawrence’s wronged wife steals the scene every time she’s given the chance, as in her rubber-glove interpretation of “Live and Let Die”:

9. Frances Ha: A movie about living a life of artfully diminished responsibility well into your 20s, breaking up with your best friend, learning to live with yourself, and, maybe, eventually growing up. I thought it was the sweetest, sincerest comedy of the year.

10. Inside Llewyn Davis: The Coen Brothers’ unromantic sketch of a couch-surfing folkie struggling to survive in early 1960s Greenwich village doesn’t preach that love or music or talent conquers. Like the Coens’ earlier “O, Brother, Where Art Thou,” “Llewyn Davis” name-checks Ulysses and, by implication, the Homeric themes of wandering search for home. (See the Llewyn Is The Cat theory.) But Llewyn doesn’t really fit the Homeric pattern. Rather, he turns out to more like another of the Coens’ Jobs, albeit a bitterer, more profane, self-sabotaging Job than the striver at the heart of “A Serious Man.” The soulful soundtrack, produced by T-Bone Burnett and Marcus Murphy, features memorable performances of traditional songs like “Hang Me, O, Hang Me,” “The Death of Queen Jane,” “The Roving Gambler,” as well as Ewan MacColl’s classic “The Shores of Herring” and Justin Timberlake et al’s funny “Please Mr Kennedy.”

Other Faves:

11. Fruitvale Station: One of the most urgent movies you could see during the year George Zimmerman got away with murdering Trayvon Martin for walking home through his neighborhood and another man murdered Renisha McBride for knocking on his door.

12. After Tiller: One of the most urgent movies you could see at a point when US discussion of reproductive choice has been confused by distorted coverage of a back-alley abortionist. “After Tiller” does a fantastic job of explaining the true stakes surrounding the increasingly inaccessible late-term abortion procedure.

13 . The Kings of Summer: By my lights, the absolute best of 2013’s bumper crop of summer coming-of-age comedies. Nick Offerman and Megan Mulally model comically bad parenting, Nick Robinson and Gabriel Basso run away into the woods to rehearse manhood by drumming on pipes and building a secret house. Moises Arias utterly steals the show as the weird, loyal friend who follows them there, deadpanning lines like: “I don’t think of myself as having a gender. Is that going to be a problem?”

14. The Wolf of Wall Street: A pharmaceutically-fueled, fraud-driven bonfire, a giant middle finger aimed at the world, an orgy of consumption till the feds drag it all away. Exhilarating as Scorcese, Winter, DeCaprio and the crew know how to make this trip, I couldn’t help feeling that I was seeing a familiar Wall Street story get the Marty treatment. But you know what? I’d still see it again. And again.

15. Stoker: Awesomely creepy, intensely photographed, compulsively watchable. Look at that goddamned cinematography:

16. As I Lay Dying: “Jackson is further away than crazy.” Yeah, I disagree with just about everybody on this one. I thought James Franco’s first outing as a director offered an inventive adaptation of Faulkner’s words to the screen through techniques that echo stream-of-consciousness storytelling, as well as several harrowing performances:

17. The Hunt: Mads Mikkelson simmers in this haunting film about a small town’s predatory turn against divorced dad and elementary school teacher accused of sexual abuse.

18. Byzantium: Possibly the most inventive, intelligent vampire fable I’ve seen committed to the screen, “Byzantium” centers on the fascinating relationship between undead mother and daughter, Gemma Arterton’s Clara and Saoirse Ronan’s Eleanor. Two centuries of immortality have made prostitute Clara a remorseless predator, concerned only about her own and Eleanor’s survival. Perpetually 16, Eleanor has grown over her endless adolescence into an angel of death, preying on the sick, dying, and suicidal. But the undead world remains a Cold Boy network. The existence of Female predators Clara and Eleanor has always offended the Vampire Patriarchs and they long to turn them back into prey. Arterton and Ronan do amazing work as Clara and Eleanor. Love the fingernails:

19. Spring Breakers: James Franco endlessly fascinates as a gold-toothed drug dealer playing underworld Henry Higgins a trio of sorority girls gone wrong.

I honestly can’t narrow it down to a twentieth film to write about. It’s late. Possibly I’m just tired.

Did you see any of these? What did you think? What were your faves in 2013?

SIFF 2013 Notebook: The Way, Way Back

The summer of 2013 witnessed the release of a raft of coming-of-age comedies, including “I Declare War,” “The Kings of Summer,” and, most prominently, “The Way, Way Back.” Everybody is perfect in this summer hit; although in most cases, that means perfectly unbearable. The adults surrounding Liam James’ shy 14-year-old Duncan range from flustered mom Toni Collette and bullying stepdad Steve Carrell to merrily crass family friends Allison Janney and Rob Cordry. Duncan is definitely at That Awkward Age, but the film makes a decent case that what’s most awkward and embarrassing about his situation are clueless and insensitive adults.

Consequently, water park slackers Sam Rockwell and Maya Rudolph bring more than comic relief when they finally rescue young Duncan from Family Vacation Hell. Less outrageous than the trailer implies, “The Way, Way Back” turns out to be a breezy, thoughtful reminder of that moment when you’re old enough to perceive that your parents’ feet are made of clay but too young to quite forgive them for it.

Sure. I can ride in the back. Whatever.

SIFF 2013 Notebook: Much Ado About Nothing

Joss Whedon’s tipsy iambic house party delights with jazzy energy and wit. Amy Acker gives us a brilliant, sharp-tongued, eye-rolling Beatrice. Clark Gregg is by turns lordly, avuncular, scary, and rueful. Reed Diamond does a merry regal turn. Nathan Fillion’s plays Dogberry as a pastiche of bad cop shows. Alex Denisoff is, alas, the film’s weak point, a half-hearted, clowning Bennedick. Whedon would have done better to cast Alan Tudyk as the male lead: a Whedon regular with the wit, energy, dramatic range, and comic chops to make the man Beatrice loves to hate seem worth the trouble.

SIFF 2013 Notebook: 100 Bloody Acres

In Cameron and Colin Cairnes‘ 100 Bloody Acres, the Morgan Brothers’ blood-and-bone organic fertilizer business has outgrown its roadkill roots. Runaway demand for their product has brothers Reg (Damon Herriman) and Lindsay (Angus Sampson) out prowling country roads for car wrecks full of potassium-rich corpses. Alas, little-brother Reg gets distracted from his body-snatching by a trio of college-age hitchhikers. Reg doesn’t get out a lot, so he’s a bit thrown by the winning Sophie (Anna McGahan), beaming with pride as he talks up the Cute Girl about his business and the brothers’ new radio commercial. Of course, when the Damned Kids stumble onto the secret ingredient, Reg turns to his big brother, the lumbering, cheerily malevolent Lindsay, who knows exactly what to do with the interlopers. From there, the movie soars on sharp objects, comic timing, and geysers of giddy, nervous energy. Obviously not for the squeamish, 100 Bloody Acres offers splatter-comedy fans a delightful trip through the meat grinder.

SIFF 2013 Notebook: C.O.G.

I have to say, I really prefer David Sedaris stories as read by the master himself, rather than acted out by doe-eyed actors from Glee.

 

SIFF 2013 Notebook: The Act of Killing

Decades after Indonesia‘s 1965 military coup and political purges, Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing paints a disquietingly human portrait of men who rode that conflict to celebrity, wealth, and power. TV journalists fawn over death squad veterans bragging about their kill totals, while control room staff mutter about untouchable madmen and thieves. Senior national politicians congratulate self-described “gangsters” for their contributions to society, and everyone seems to agree that this English word is some kind of synonym for “free men” operating “outside the system”–the ultimate anti-communists! All the while, we watch the aging executioners enjoy warm family lives and colorful clothes and cars as they extort money from shopkeepers, dabble in sham politics, reminisce, and, fatally, try to recapture their glory days on video.

SIFF 2013 Notebook: Key of Life

English: Life-Key Deutsch: Beatmungsfolie (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

_

Kenji Uchida‘s overlong switcheroo caper, “Key of Life,” would be greatly improved by lopping off about 40 minutes and recasting one of the principals. The basic plot has the makings of a decent screwball comedy: a failed actor changes places with an amnesiac hit man, while a lovelorn executive pencils in one of the confused pair as her groom-to-be. Teruyuki Kagawa‘s meticulous Kondo is surprisingly winning as the underworld Mr. Fixit turned struggling artist, as is Ryoko Hirosue, the magazine editor who mistakes him for the honest, reliable, hardworking man of her dreams. But Masato Makai’s thespian wannabe, Sakurai, just staggers through the movie pulling dopey faces. Worst of all, the middle third of the film consists of an warren of pointless, unfunny subplots, dwelling on characters making sadface about the antics of peripheral figures. After struggling to stay awake through these sections, I had little patience or energy to appreciate the denouement–even as it resumed and appeared to neatly resolve the main plot. By this time, I mainly just wanted the keys to my own life back.

SIFF 2013 Notebook: Another Woman’s Face

English: Plastic Surgeon Vishal Kapoor, MD performing liposuction surgery on female patient using the super-wet technique. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In Pappi Corsicato’s madcap “Another Woman’s Face,” TV star Bella and plastic surgeon René preside over a fantasy kingdom of manufactured beauty. The couple host a reality show from René’s alpine plastic surgery clinic, celebrating hubby’s miracle makeovers. A dip in ratings convinces the show’s producers to replace Bella in the upcoming season. However, a minor accident and pretended disfigurement enable Bella to win back the limelight as her husband’s star patient. René concocts a scheme to defraud the insurance company, deceive the audience, and rake in the cash. As the famous facelift artist goes to work, three attendants glide into position behind decorative models of a mouth, ears, and eyes to mime neither speaking, hearing, nor seeing evil. All the while, news reports chatter in the background about a gigantic asteroid hurtling toward earth.–In fact, blunt, unsexy facts (toilets, leaking pipes, lies, asteroids) crash into Bella and René’s magical kingdom throughout the film, generally unrecognized or unheeded. Corsicato’s beauty merchants and consumers seem so absorbed in misdirection and manufactured desire that they don’t know reality even when it (yes, literally) hits them over the head. The best thing about Another Woman’s Face? It provides the simple joy of watching heavy objects (plumbing, asteroids) hurled at self-absorbed people.

Selling Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln with Allan Pinkerton and Major General John Alexander McClernand at the Battle of Antietam. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The civil war in Spielberg‘s Lincoln rages between two narratives: a smoky, boozy tale of desperate political skullduggery in the white man’s Washington of the 1860s; and a gauzier period piece, featuring soft light filtering through diaphanous curtains, stirring speeches, and Father Abraham_ in his rocking chair. We’ve seen the second, hagiographic, narrative frame, everywhere from the History Channel to campaign ads. It sits awkwardly alongside the first, which smells a lot more like the truth–particularly as the movie focuses its lens so sharply on the racism, greed, and hypocrisy of the era’s political culture. What’s more: it’s the most entertaining part of the movie. In this storyline, the protagonist isn’t Daniel Day Lewis‘ haunted president but the wily, sarcastic radical Thaddeus Stephens, played by Tommy Lee Jones. Stephens is for emancipation before it’s militarily convenient, trades artful insults with racist grandees daily in the well of Congress, and is instrumental in making slavery history. He inhabits Washington’s spittoon-lined corridors along with Lincoln’s drunken bagmen and, incidentally, has actual, personal relationships with actual black people. I wish that this story had won out over Spielberg’s teary presidential biopic.

At the same time that I saw Spielberg’s Lincoln, I was reading Bruce Levine’s Southern slave liberation narrative, The Fall of House of Dixie, a story of newly-emancipated slaves fighting alongside Union troops, taking over plantations, and running off their former masters–which to me suggests a much, much more interesting Civil War film.

Slender Threads: Angelina Jolie’s “In the Land of Blood and Honey”

Angelina Jolie’s first outing as a writer and director is nothing if not ambitious: a historical drama of the 1990s Bosnian war employing Bosnian and Serb actors speaking the local BCS (Bosnian/Serb/Croatian) language. Historically compelling, the film is redolent with the kind of harrowing details found in Peter Mass’, Chuck Sudetic’s, Laura Silber’s, and Alan Little’s accounts of the Bosnian genocide. On a more personal level, the movie’s central relationship parallels the one at the heart of Ang Lee’s Lust/Caution: a volatile affair between a man and a woman on opposite sides of a civil war. But In the Land of Blood and Honey never achieves the emotional coherence or intensity of Lee’s film. Rather, its metier is the broader picture, a vivid revelation of social collapse–in a place and time closer (the film seems to say) than the viewer cares to admit. Ultimately, one may choose to take Jolie’s two-layered narrative as a needful reminder not only of postwar Bosnia’s plight, but of the frailty of all human covenants.